Love it!
I vote for Nigerian dwarf goats!! (Maybe I am biased though... I love my goaties!)
They dont take much space. You will want to rotate pastures though. They will clear out bushes and vegetation very well.
We are thinking about trying feeder sheep in the future as well, for meat. We always had a back up plan to eat any goat kids that didn't sell, but so far, they have all sold quite easily, which helps with feed costs.
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My only concern with goats is that we will run out of browse. We do have a few areas that need clearing out but once that's done I'm going to have to come up with something
We ran out of browse. Our solution was to get permission from the various neighbors to trim weeds and branches from their properties. They all said to take as much as we wanted! Free brush trimming, yay! So each weekend, my hubby and I take his pickup out to the woods and trim bushes, branches and small trees, and make a big pile in their pen. Its a chore, but it is free. :D
That's always an option but not having many neighbors would make it difficult. Sheep seem more sustainable but they are bigger and apparently a pain to milk
True. I like the idea of running a feeder sheep or two with the goats, since they eat grass while the goats eat weeds. They seem like they could complement each other. Have to take care that they dont breed though.
We dont have a lot of neighbors, but they all have wooded areas that they dont use, so they dont mind us trimming them for us. Our little community is also surrounded by a huge company's pine forest, (Rayonier, they make wood and paper products), and these woods are frequently full of undergrowth, and make a good source of brush as well.
Sometimes you gotta get creative.
I also like to save money by using raked up leaves as bedding. Works very well, actually, and its free!
I have no idea how easy or hard it would be to milk a sheep. Ive heard of doing it, but our little goats are so easy to keep and the milk is SOOOO good, that I dont really care to try. Not now anyway.
Best of luck! Cant wait to see what you all decide to do!
My thoughts exactly! We'll have to figure out the best way to feed the goats after we've cleared our land. We use leaves in the duck coop and they work great!
Apparently sheep are hard to milk but maybe if you raise it from a baby and handle them all the time?
Maybe so... I wonder what breeds of sheep give more milk. I dont know if there is a 'dairy' breed of sheep, and like with goats and cows, if you milk a non-dairy breed, they dont give a whole lot.
But maybe there is a dairy breed...
They are just like goats and cows, there are meat breeds and dairy breeds